WASHINGTON–When The Washington Post closes its Toronto bureau this summer, it will mark the death of the American newspaper correspondent in Canada.

WASHINGTON–When The Washington Post closes its Toronto bureau this summer, it will mark the death of the American newspaper correspondent in Canada.

The departure of Doug Struck will leave Canadian coverage in the United States to wire services, contract writers, freelancers and reporters parachuted in for specific events.

The move is part of a newspaper trend across the continent, spurred by financial pressures, a fragmentation of the media market and – in the case of the large U.S. newspapers – the cost of keeping bureaus in Iraq to cover a war now in its fifth year.

But many analysts also believe the loss of the American media voice in Canada will inevitably push the Canadian message further into irrelevance and widen the gulf between two nations which already do not understand each other well.

The Post follows The New York Times, which closed its Canadian bureau last summer and now relies on two contract reporters for coverage. Other major newspapers that have shut Canadian offices in recent years include The Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times and the Chicago Tribune.

Paul Frazer, a government consultant with a long history of Canada-U.S. relations, said it was "extremely important'' that Americans learn about Canada through Americans on the ground in the country.

"There is an immense lack of first-hand knowledge about the two countries and American bureaus in Canada as well as Canadian bureaus in the United States are essential," said Frazer, who is now with the Washington-based Livingston Group.

There have been a flurry of bureau closings in the American print media in recent months, particularly at medium and smaller-market newspapers.

Jill Carroll, a Christian Science Monitor correspondent in the Middle East, found an estimated 10 per cent drop in foreign bureaus in the U.S. print media since 2000 and about a 30 per cent dip in the number of correspondents over the same time period.

She did her study for Harvard University's Joan Shorenstein Center for Press and Politics.

But is the Canadian story boring for American newspaper readers?

"Any American editor who finds Canadians boring has his or her head up their ice," said Roy Peter Clark, senior scholar at Florida's Poynter Institute.

"The thing you lose when you close a bureau or cut a beat is you lose expertise and you lose your attention.

"The value of the bureau is that when a newspaper plants a reporter somewhere, they're saying they think the place is important and what is happening in the place is newsworthy."

In recent months through Struck, for example, Washington Post readers learned about diamond mining and ice highways in the Northwest Territories, environmental initiatives in British Columbia, snow sculpting in Manitoba, as well as day-to-day news events such as the recent Quebec election and the Supreme Court of Canada decision on terror laws and the Charter of Rights.

"It doesn't make our job any easier," acknowledged Bernie Etzinger, a spokesperson for the Canadian embassy here.

Etzinger did not comment on The Post move, which has not been officially announced, but he conceded the trend could be seen as troubling for an embassy trying to get its message out to Americans.

"We understand a lot of these decisions are being made because of market forces, but we remain hopeful that once these market forces change, newspapers may reconsider," he said.

The New York Times, Washington Post and Los Angeles Times all still maintain more than 20 foreign bureaus each.

In Canada, the Associated Press maintains a full-time bureau and Bloomberg and Dow Jones also staff the country, although they concentrate on business news.

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